


I lived so much life (I think that God is gonna have to kill me twice)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Found Family, Gen, Guess Who's Back, Hijacking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, POV Peeta Mellark, Peeta Needs A Hug, Post-Canon, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, and peeta finds out that he is one of them, andy is still alive btw, are any of y'all shocked that you're getting yet another hg story?, back again, feral protective nicky is my SHIT y'all, for the old guard at least, immortal andromache, in which the old guard is still around when panem becomes a thing, more old guard members will come in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Each District has its own legend about the undying Ones. Four’s is of a long-haired woman held beneath the waves of the ocean in an iron coffin, echoes of her screams causing the tides; Two’s is of a bearded man trapped beneath the rocks of the mountains, his clawing fists causing the rumble of avalanches. Five’s is of a man with alcohol on his breath who is chained inside of the explosive testing plants, getting his body constantly ripped apart; Ten’s is of a woman who rode with the horses before they were a Capitol luxury and now is said to toil somewhere in the most dangerous meat plants.Twelve’s is a quieter tale- a quiet, kind woman who lives on the edge of town and occasionally brings in game for the Hob. She tells the children stories of the undying ones and they call her the River Lady, for her quiet, peaceful voice that ripples with the age of a river.And, of course, every district has tales of the Wild One, a manic, feral man who crawls through the Districts, searching for his lost love, his lost family- a man who brings destruction upon the Games and the Capitol wherever he roams.-It is on the eve of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games that Peeta Mellark discovers that he cannot die.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Peeta Mellark, Peeta Mellark & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Comments: 53
Kudos: 164





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Young And A Menace" by Fall Out Boy, though I totally wrote this while listening to "The World We Made" by Ruelle- aka the song that plays while Andy kills all the soldiers in the church after Joe and Nicky are taken.
> 
> First off, sorry for the giant gap between posting. I've been working at my actual job as well as working on an original book of mine and I just haven't gotten inspiration lately- until the Old Guard, that is!
> 
> Alright, I've been reading Old Guard fic for ages and wanted to write something for it, and of course that something ended up being the Hunger Games. At first I was going to make a full-on Hunger Games AU with them as Victors, but then I realized that this could be a rather interesting way to explore their characters (and totally explore how having someone who fights with words instead of weapons could change/expand the team). I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

_don’t you dare, for one minute,_

_believe that my kindness makes me_

_anything but insurmountable._

_i did not unzip my chest to every kind of hurt,_

_and stagger back, wounded and alive,_

_just to hear you call me weak for trying._

**-Ashe Vernon**

Each District has its own legend about the undying Ones. Four’s is of a long-haired woman held beneath the waves of the ocean in an iron coffin, echoes of her screams causing the tides; Two’s is of a bearded man trapped beneath the rocks of the mountains, his clawing fists causing the rumble of avalanches. Five’s is of a man with alcohol on his breath who is chained inside of the explosive testing plants, getting his body constantly ripped apart by radiation and explosion alike; Ten’s is of a woman who rode with the horses before they were a Capitol luxury and now is said to toil somewhere in the most dangerous meat plants, with horror stories of parts of her body ending up in the meatpacking facilities, in the tubs where they mix together sausages for the Districts.

Twelve’s is a quieter tale- a quiet, kind woman who lives on the edge of town and occasionally brings in game for the Hob. Peacekeepers ignore her illegal activities and the townspeople ignore when she vanishes for years at a time. She tells the children stories of the undying ones and they call her the River Lady, for her quiet, peaceful voice that ripples with the age of a river.

And, of course, every district has tales of the Wild One, a manic, feral man who crawls through the Districts, searching for his lost love, his lost family- a man who brings destruction upon the Games and the Capitol wherever he roams. He is spotted in Two, in Four, in Five, in Ten, in the Capitol and in Twelve alike, searching for those he calls his own. He is bearded and blue-eyed and ferocious, more a force of nature than a man, wrath personified.

The only time any District citizen ever calls the Wild One more than a force of wrath is the few occasions, throughout the first century of Panem’s existence, that he sits down in the living room of Twelve’s River Lady and breaks bread with her, the two of them exchanging conversation that aches with regret and wistful nostalgia.

-

It is on the eve of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games that Peeta Mellark discovers that he cannot die.

-

The last blow that Peeta’s mother gave him before the day of the Reaping sends him into the corner of the house and splits head open, spilling blood onto the ground. As Peeta blinks his eyes open, he sees his mother slamming the door to the house shut through his own blurry vision, hears her shouting at him to not come in until he’s learned his lesson.

Peeta peels himself up off the ground and at first he thinks, from the ache in his temple, that he’s just gotten another bruise. His mother tends to try to avoid them, but she doesn’t always succeed.

But then his eyes catch on the amount of blood on the ground and he reaches up a hand to his temple, where his hand comes away covered in sticky red liquid.

Oh, _shit_.

Peeta knows he could go to Ms. Everdeen, who lives in the Seam, the mother of Katniss, the girl he fell in love with at age six. She is the town apothecary, after all, and she’d be able to patch him up and maybe give him some willow bark to deal with the pain.

But when he feels his head further and finds no wound beneath the blood on his skin.

Peeta remembers sitting on the floor of the River Lady’s kitchen, her braids meticulously kept, her eyes warm and welcoming. He remembers, distantly, tales about undying ones, about immortals who came back when they were killed, whose flesh could not withstand permanent wounds.

So he stands up and instead of heading for the Everdeens’, he heads to the edge of town and knocks on the door of the River Lady, who opens it after mere moments. She looks just as he remembers her- head of dark braids, warm brown eyes, dark brown skin. She wears plain clothing, a shawl around her shoulders, and a small necklace with a small metal necklace hanging from it, just like always.

“River Lady,” he says, “I just died.”

“Fuck,” the River Lady says, eyes going wide, “You’re one of us.” She turns to shout over her shoulder. “Nicky, _fratello, vieni qui!_ ”

For the first time Peeta notices the man sitting in the River Lady’s corner rocking chair. As the man stands up, eyes wide, Peeta notices that he looks like he belongs to the merchant class, all fair hair, paler skin, and green eyes. He strides over to the River Lady, pausing behind her shoulder, and Peeta can see the ghosts in the man’s eyes, the determination in his squared shoulders.

“How can you fight?” The man- Nicky, he must be- asks without preamble, tone almost begging, as if Peeta can give him some sort of answer that he desperately needs.

Which is why Peeta’s heart squeezes to say: “I can’t, sir, I’m a baker.”

Nicky’s shoulders sag and a small, pained sound escapes from behind closed lips. “Then why would they make you one of us?” He turns to the River Lady, lips twisting. “How can he help us save everyone?”

The River Lady puts a hand on Nicky’s shoulder before turning to Peeta, eyes sympathetic. “Come on in, kid, and tell us how you died. Maybe we can figure out why you’ve become one of us from that.” She gives him a small smile. “And by the way, my name’s Nile, not the River Lady. If you’re part of this family, you should start calling me by my name.”

“Peeta Mellark,” Peeta says, and follows Nile into her house.

-

Over the course of the night Peeta learns many stories about wars far before the Dark Days, about lands called America and France and Scythia and Vietnam and the Holy Land, about soulmates whose relationships lasted thousands of years, about drowning ladies and men buried alive and a family that did not break until the Capitol ripped them apart. He learns about a man who was a merchant and artist and warrior, who Nicky- once named Nicolo di Genova- loved deeper than Peeta could ever imagine, a depth so soul-searing that it makes Nicky’s ever word drip with painful, aching longing. He learns about a family of warriors that supported and fought and died for each other, who have seen countries and empires such as Panem rise and fall.

He learns about a Capitol who know the general locations of several of the Undying Ones and yet Nile and Nicky have not been able to acquire the locations from any of them. He learns about how the Capitol might have purposefully trapped Yusuf and Quynh in places that would lead to them dying over and over again.

(He even learns about rumors of a District 13 that is alive and kicking, a District 13 that might possibly be able to help Nile and Nicky find this family of theirs, a District 13 that Nile has been listening for in the decades that Nicky has been searching for his lost Yusuf, his lost Joe.)

And in return Peeta tells them about how he died this evening, about how his mother shoved him so hard into the corner of the house outside that he bled out from his head.

Nicky’s eyes narrow in fury and Nile’s lips purse. “We’ll take care of it,” Nile says, “Don’t worry.”

When Peeta tells them that they can’t hurt her- because the family needs her as a worker, because the bakery would go under without her organizing all their supplies and working out the bartering, because Peeta loves her no matter how much she’s hurt him- Nicky’s nose crinkles as if smelling something disgusting but he still nods, still respects Peeta’s decision.  
Peeta has no idea how he will fit into this family, into this agony, into this rift a hundred years deep and seemingly insurmountable. He has no idea why his baker’s fingers have been made undying, why it wasn’t someone like Katniss Everdeen or her best friend Gale Hawthorne, archers and fighters both, who was made undying, who joined this family of warriors.

And yet, despite that insecurity, despite that uncertainty- he can’t help but feel accepted by Nicky and Nile. It doesn’t matter that Nicky’s words are measured, his tales brief, it doesn’t matter that Nile looks at Peeta like he’s a ghost- both of them still somehow make him feel more loved than his family ever did.

Well past midnight Nile’s lips purse and she halts the conversation. “You’ve got the Reaping tomorrow, kid,” she says, “You’ve gotta get home to get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

She and Nicky each give him a quick hug before he leaves, both of them squeezing on tight as if they might never see him again.

Peeta returns home that night with stories ringing in his ears, thousands of years of unimaginable history echoing through his brain. The blood-stained tapestry of history weaves itself into the few hours of sleep he gets tonight, with him dreaming of a drowning woman and a suffocating man and a chained, drunken creature and a woman who screams with the force of millenia.

He wakes up soon with the knowledge that these faces, these undying ones- they are his future family members. Their agony is his to know and to understand, his to try and alleviate, if only a little, for their sakes.

-

Peeta finds himself in the Reaping crowd, unable to leave, to go anywhere else. He has to be here, for legal reasons, but he can’t help but think about what’ll happen this evening after he gets back to Nile’s house after he helps his family at the bakery.

Effie calls the girl tribute’s name and it’s no one Peeta recognizes- some seam fourteen-year-old, skinny and covered in ash. He winces, but doesn’t dwell on it. No one does.

Instead, he thinks about how Nicky and Nile will be waiting in that small house on the edge of the District tonight to start planning _something_ with him. They might not know why he, the baker’s son, whose fingers are far more suited to piping decorations than holding weapons, was chosen, but he is one of them now, a valuable part of the team. He is going to help them, somehow, figure out how to save the rest of their family, trapped throughout the Districts. Over the next few years he’ll learn fighting techniques from them and he’ll tell them about his dreams, helping them track down those four members of their family by the visions he sees when he closes his eyes to sleep.

But then Effie Trinket calls out the name of the boy tribute and _Peeta Mellark_ are the words that come out of her mouth.

Peeta stumbles forward through the crowd, his new status as an undying man stuck in his throat. He reaches the stage and he stands opposite the girl- some Seam girl he’s never met before, who he barely recognizes from school. His eyes search the crowd but it’s not his family he’s looking for. It’s not his mother, who killed him, it’s not his father, who never stood up to her, it’s not his brothers, who never did anything to stop what was happening.

Instead, Peeta looks out across the crowd and makes eye contact with Nile and Nicky, who stand in the adults’ section of the crowd. Nile’s arms are crossed over her chest and Nicky’s arms are at his sides and they’re both looking him dead in the eyes. He can’t see anything beyond that, not from this distance. He can’t see their facial expressions, if they’re horrified or shocked or grim or resigned or angry.

To be honest, Peeta isn’t sure how to feel, either. He’s going into the Hunger Games and he knows, whether he likes it or not, that he will come out Victor. He has no choice in this.

-

At the Justice Building, his father visits him for sixty seconds, tops, handing him a couple of cookies, as if that can make up for everything that has happened with his mother over the years.

His mother doesn’t visit. Neither do his brothers. He can’t find it in himself to care that much about their absence, not when Nile and Nicky pile in through the door seconds after his father leaves, concern carved into their faces.

“You’re going to win this,” Nile says, and Peeta can tell that she’s trying to keep her voice matter-of-fact but her voice is still slightly horrified. 

For the first time, Peeta can see that same horror in Nicky’s face. “You’re going to have to kill in order to make it out,” Nicky says, and his voice has that same slight tremble to it that Nile’s does. “In the history of the Games, they have never allowed a Victor without at least one kill under their belt.”

Peeta looks at them, at these immortal warriors, at this man who lost the love of his life a hundred years ago and this woman who spent the last century telling stories to little children. He has none of their skills, none of their training, nothing save his baker’s hands and his own words.

Peeta can’t deny that he’s terrified, even if he can’t die. He knows from their stories that there are alternatives far worse to dying. He could end up like Andy or Quynh or Booker or Yusuf if the Capitol figures out what he is, that’s he’s one of the undying ones that have been a thorn in their sides for a century.

And yet Peeta squares his shoulders and looks them right in the eyes. “I’m gonna figure it out,” he says with as much confidence as he can fake. “I’m going to make sure I don’t get taken. And then after that-” Peeta’s voice stutters, his words halting, because he doesn’t know what happens after he becomes a Victor. No one does. All that Twelve has as an example is alcohol-soaked Haymitch, who Nile and Nicky say remind Peeta of an old friend of theirs, the infamous Booker.

“We’ll help you,” Nicky says, voice firm. “Neither has ever had to kill-” he swallows the word _children_ , because they all three know it and they don’t need the reminder- and, of course, both Nicky and Nile gave Peeta plenty of information last night about how all-seeing the Capitol is. They don’t need to give the Capitol more information than needed. “But we’ll help you with learning how to deal with everything afterward, alright?” Nicky actually manages the first teasing smile that Peeta has seen on him as he looks to Nile, nudging her in the side. “Nile here will finally get her turn at being teacher.”

Nile rolls her eyes. “As if you and Joe didn’t enjoy it.”

Nicky flashes her the smallest hint of toothy. “And don’t forget Andy.” Then he turns back to Peeta. “Now, listen closely, okay? We’ve got four minutes for us to tell you everything we were planning on spending at least the next few years teaching you.”

So Peeta shuts his mouth, leans in, and listens.

-

Peeta arrives on the train with four of the most useful minutes of his entire life pounding through his head, multiple ways to kill, forage, and poison in his head. 

The Seam girl opposite him- Peeta thinks her name is Cinder- looks like she’s shaking in her seat as Effie prattles on. Peeta wants to console her. He really does. In other circumstances, he might even want her to win over him. After all, he’s sure that her family loves her more than his does. Her winnings could move them all into some big Victor’s Village house and give them a better life. Before yesterday, Peeta would not have wanted to return to the District. He would have been happier to die in the Games than be stuck with his mother’s blows for the rest of his life.

But this year, after everything he’s learned, well- fortunately for Twelve, they’re bringing home a Victor this year, with packages for a year for all of the kids. But unfortunately for Cinder, only one Twelve kid is getting out this year, and it’s going to be him.

Peeta’s going to win this. He’s going to make it home to Nile and Nicky. He’s going to help them find, recover, and take care of Quynh, Booker, Joe, and Andy. He's going to do everything he can to make sure that these six people will never be trapped and hurt like this again.

And in order to do all of that, he’s gotta make his time in the Games look realistic, give actual reasons how he could have survived and healed and everything so no one expects. 

Which means, simply, that Peeta’s going to have to use his words, his tongue, and any innate charisma he can find to convince sponsors to get him supplies that lend themselves to healing, as well as spending his days in training learning how to dodge blows. He’s gotta give the Capitol every possible excuse to _not_ find anything strange with his ability to stay alive.

When Haymitch asks them whether they’d prefer to be mentored by themselves or together, Peeta looks at him, trying not to look at Cinder, and says, "Alone," thinking of four people trapped by themselves, chained and captured and isolated for decades.

He's going to do this. His hands might be trembling against the thighs of his pants but he is going to take everything Nile and Nicky have told him and his own verbal talents and everything Haymitch can give him to get through the Games without giving away the secret of the undying ones.

(And, by the end of it all, he'll have the murder of children on his conscience. But dealing with that can wait.

Peeta thinks it might _have_ to wait, because he doesn't know if he'd be able to deal with it otherwise.)


	2. found peace in your violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I'm really sorry for the late update. I've been working on my own novels (and I finished one between the first chapter and this one, yay, while another is nearly finished) and doing schoolwork and work-work and it took getting back into Old Guard and Hunger Games fic, as well as introducing my roommate to the Old Guard movie,t o get me back into the mindset to write this fic. Hope y'all like this update!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter is from "Silence" by Marshmello ft. Khalid, aka the absolute bop from the movie soundtrack.

This is the longest that Nicky has ever stayed with Nile since before the Dark Days. It’s been a week since he arrived, and she knows that he’s planning on staying through the rest of the Games, until the Victory Announcement that inevitably favor Peeta Mellark.

Nicky’s never been able to stop moving, not since Capitolites blew up a mountain and entombed Joe beneath it. But today, he’s here, sitting in the rocking chair she carved in the decades she’s been living here, trying to watch out for news of District 13 and distract herself from the seeming uselessness of searching for the rest of their family.

Right now, they’re sitting in Nile’s house, the tiny tv screen playing a feed of the Tribute Parade. Right there, in the final chariot, is Peeta, fair-haired and covered in fire. Despite their immortality, Nile can’t help but wince at the sight. She's burned alive once or twice, and it's always a bitch to recover from.

Nicky cooked dinner for the two of them that night. It's nothing like the feasts of pasta and salad and chicken that they used to eat, back in the 2000s, but it's still better than anything that Nile has cooked for herself since the Dark Days, because it's her brother, here.

It's not that surprising, Nicky cooking. Nicky is the mom friend at heart. Or, more accurately, he and Joe together are the mom friend, and Nicky is filling the hole as much as he can.

-

The door to Nile's house opens on the night the Tribute's scores are announced, as she and Nicky are sitting in the kitchen, watching the TV. They're sitting on opposite sides of the table, just like old times, and for the first time since the Dark Days the aura in the room doesn't feel haunted by ghosts. There is a palpable energy in the air, an anxiousness toward the future rather than Nile's raw, singular grief over the children dying on the screen. Together they have nearly two hundred combined years of shared grief over all of these innocent deaths.

Their eyes are trained on Peeta, golden-haired amongst the rest, a shiny face and strong arms and something about him, something that made fate turn him into one of them.

Nicky's breath catches next to Nile and she looks away from the screen to see- " _Vaffanculo,"_ Nicky mutters, and then he's sprinting across the worn, old floor of Nile's house to hug a familiar, worn face. The only reason Nile doesn't follow him to bury her face in Booker's shoulder is because there is this feeling deep inside that insists that Peeta has to be witnessed, no matter what, that Peeta has someone who can share in his first battle.

And sure enough, Booker and Nicky stride across Nile's tiny house to her seat, arms around each others' shoulders. Booker looks exhausted but pleased to be with them.

"Where have you been, Book?" Nicky asks, unable to keep the smile from his lips. His shoulders are still slumped in grief, but there's something lighter in his eyes. It's not like the sudden, wretched hope that Peeta brought to him, but something different, something old returned again to him, like it felt when Quynh came back centuries ago.

"Chained in Five in the chemical testing facility," Booker says with a snort as he pulls a bottle of some sort of alcohol out of his pack- a return to old times, in a way. "Had to have someone to test chemical agents on."

There is a weariness to Booker's gaze that Nile hasn't seen since before his hundred year exile, centuries ago, a weariness that makes Nicky's former side-hug turn into a full-on embrace where Booker sets down the bottle on the ground and pulls Nicky in tight as well.

"And how'd you escape?" Nile asks, standing up from one of the only two chairs in the room. Booker waves her back into her seat as he sits down on the ground next to his bottle.

"Some idiot forgot to reset the testing mechanism so I had enough time to heal fully between blasts. Managed to pick the locks and sneak out." Booker glances up at the screen. "Why are you guys watching the Games, anyway? Even I wouldn't, and I'm the one with chronic depression. Don't we have other things to worry about?"

Nicky gestures toward the screen. "Peeta's our newest."

Booker's eyes go wide. He trains his eye on the boy on the screen, the boy that is somehow one of them, this boy who is no warrior but is somehow immortal, this boy who will win the Hunger Games. "A fucking _kid_? That’s him? I mean, I dreamed of him, but I thought that was his _brother_ -"

Nile nods. She's been the youngest for so long that she's forgotten that she wasn't that young when she died. She was the youngest when she died, but Peeta, the boy with the bread, the baker's son with the golden tongue and the bright, hopeful eyes- he's a mere sixteen. Not even an adult, yet. Youth and innocence and hope- Nile brought that to the Guard centuries ago, but this is on a whole new level.

“His name is Peeta,” Nicky says, “Peeta Mellark. Baker’s son. First death caused by abuse at the hands of the monster who calls herself his mother.”

Booker’s eyes flash, his lips twisting. If there is one thing about him that can be counted on, it’s being protective of children and steadfast in his idea of how parents should treat them, just like Nicky can be counted on to be focused on justice. The two of them together are a mighty force against any parent who dares harm their child. If it weren’t for Peeta’s explicit prohibition from hurting his mother, Nile knows there would be retribution to be had.

“And he was Reaped this year?” Booker asks.

Nile nods. “You know what Reaping is?”

Booker snorts, something dark in his voice. “Scientists talked about it back in Five when they’d come over the intercom to ask about my responses to the new chemicals. Horrifying concept, the Hunger Games.”

“I told the kids in this District stories before they were school-aged,” Nile says, “I would watch them for their parents, sometimes. Try to give them some hope. Some tales to distract them from the drudgery of life in this District. And every year I watched them go to their deaths."

"This year's going to be different, though," Nicky says, voice soft as he watches Peeta's name cross the screen, his training score of an 8 flashing across the screen.

"Not bad," Nile mutters, and Booker arches an eyebrow.

"What are the scores out of?"

"12," Nicky supplies, "Though no one's ever gotten higher than an eleven."

Booker shrugs. "Then not that bad, I guess."

Then Nicky turns to Booker, a hunger in his face that neither Booker nor Nile have seen since Quynh thought she was watching Andy's final death, all those centuries ago. A desperation for answers, for knowledge, for his love to be returned to him: "Have you heard any news about any of the others?"

"They have legends about you in Five, Nicky," Booker says, "Just as they used to have them about Andy. The wandering Wild One, in search of his lost love."

Nile snorts, despite the circumstances. "Accurate, you've gotta give it to them."

Nicky gives her the smallest of fond smiles but Nile's known him for four hundred years and she knows the wrinkles around his eyes that speak to the grief he's been experiencing for a century, ever since Joe was trapped in an explosion as they were trying to save rebels during the Dark Days. The mountain had collapsed on top of Joe, sealing him at the back of a once-tunnel underneath of a mountain.

The entombing of Joe was the sole accidental tragedy among the four missing members of the Old Guard. Andy and Quynh and Booker- they were all drugged and trapped, deep in whatever way the Capitol could find to contain them.

They all know that Quynh's rumored isolation was the worst. The Capitol's drugs work on them all, even if they don't have permanent effects. The Capitol was able to pull the Guard's worst fears and nightmares out of them and then had implemented them with a precision and horror yet seen by the Guard. Quynh, according to the stories that Nicky has gathered, is chained under the ocean somewhere, just as she was entombed in the Iron Maiden for all of those centuries.

Nicky has gone diving for her off of every possible remaining coast in Panem, just as he dug through the rocks of the mountains in Two for Joe, just as he has gone hunting through factories in Eight, Ten, Six, and Three for Andy. He is a relentless machine, a veritable fiend, ferocious and unrelenting in his quest.

And yet- right now, he stands in one spot and he watches. Same as Nile. Same as Booker.

Here is the newest member of the oldest Guard in the world. Watch him survive one of the worst games that humanity has ever developed.

-

They have decisions to make, about timing and searching and endings. Nicky had originally resolved to not search while one of their own was trying to survive the Games, but now that Booker's back, living proof that their is hope for the Guard and their continued survival, he has his doubts. Joe is somewhere out there, breathing in rocks and dirt and dying as rapidly as Quynh once died under the ocean's weight.

And yet- he promised Peeta he would watch. A few weeks can't hurt, right? No more than three-quarters of a century has.

But a few weeks will result in at least dozens of new deaths, if the other members of the Guard are still alive.

Nicky sits himself in front of the tv, hands clasped so tightly together that he carves new bloody wounds into his palms with his nails, wounds that heal too fast for his liking, and he resigns himself to the fact that seeing Peeta through the Games will result in Joe dying just that many more times.

He can comfort himself in one thing: at least Nile, Nicky, and Booker have the confirmation that as of a few weeks ago they were all alive, thanks to Peeta's dreams.

-

At the tribute interview they come to know a different side of Peeta, a side that almost illuminates why he, the warrior who has never held a weapon, was chosen to become an immortal like them. He has a way of twisting words into weapons, of making them as dangerous as Nicky's sword or Nile's (once Andy's) ax.

Booker wonders what the fair-haired boy's weapons specialty will come to be. Maybe a bow, like that girl he caught sneaking past the fence last week or like Quynh. Maybe guns like him and Nile, maybe a sword like Joe and Nicky, maybe an ax like Andy.

Nicky watches him and a sorrowful smile crosses his face as he thinks of his lost lover, buried beneath the earth. Peeta has just as much of a silver tongue as Joe does, but Joe preferred not to use his to manipulate as much as possible. Nicky wonders how that talent with words will assist Peeta in gaining sponsors, in keeping him alive.

Nile looks at the little boy she once told stories to, just as she did every child in this District, and she doesn't think of war. She doesn't think of his words or his weapons or his capacity as a warrior. She thinks of him as he came to her the night he died, blood spilled over his face, telling them that his mother had killed him, that he was "an Undying One," just like them.

Just like all of them, Peeta's experienced plenty of trauma. And yet- Peeta is hopeful. He is kind. Despite what his mother did to him, he still refused to let them do anything to her. Few of them would be so kind to those who have hurt them, and none of them would hesitate to hurt a child abuser like Oaken Mellark.

Peeta carries such empathy and such calculation within him, a complex mix of traits that reminds her, in turn, of each of Nile's fellow immortals. Andy's stubbornness, Nicky's empathy, Joe's loyalty, Quynh's calculation, Booker's adaptability. There's probably something of herself in Peeta as well, some part of her that if she looked hard enough, she could see reflected in his personality.

And also- something new. Something, perhaps, more.

-

So on the eve of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games, Nicky leaves his spot in Nile's living room and sets off on a renewed search for his family, leaving his chair open for Booker to sit and witness their newest brother survive a greater Arena than nearly any of them have lived through.

The Games open on a bright clearing, children rising on the annual pedestals around an all-too-familiar silver Cornucopia. Three sets of eyes are fixed on a golden-haired boy who can't die in the next few weeks, a boy who has to survive so that they can have a chance of getting him back and not having to add another tally to their list of lost immortals. 

Then the cameras rise and-

Nile lets out a sharp breath as Nicky leaps to his feet.

The Arena is shaped like a valley, mountains rising up on all sides, taller than the eye can see. The ground is covered by forests, by shrubs and all sorts of greenery, but Nile could care less about that. The only mountain shaped like that, the only mountain tall enough to create an Arena with a valley that fits inside of its cliffs-

"Is that-?" Nile asks as the Gamemakers begin the count down, and Booker arches an eyebrow.

"Is that what?"

"They built the Arena in the mountain where Joe was buried," Nicky says, a desperate, starving hope in his voice. "And the Gamemakers made the valley wider in order to fit an entire Arena within its cradle."

Booker's not an idiot. He's more than capable of putting the pieces of this puzzle together as the timer hits 2. "Which means that they made it that much easier to unbury him."

"And Peeta knows that," Nile adds, eyes wide, and suddenly, Nicky's decision to stay, to watch the Games, to leave Joe for a few more weeks- it lessens the lump that's been sitting in his chest for seventy-five years, if only by a little bit.

The moment the Games end, they have a destination to get to, an Arena that will soon become a tourist destination for Capitolites with more money than empathy.

The timer goes off and the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games begins. Everyone's gazes snaps to the camera feed following the male tribute from Twelve, the warrior who can run or decide to stay or fight or a number of options.

The question is now how this newest immortal's battle tactics will function. Will he charge forward like Andy and Nile? Will he run away, plot from a distance like Nicky or Booker? Will he run circles around his opponents, striking like a viper like Quynh or Joe would?

Peeta Mellark steps off of the platform as the screams and the bloodshed erupt. His hands are trembling the slightest amount, but he runs forward, grabs a pack- the cameras aren't close enough to show what's in it- and then he takes off running.

Well, there's one thing that Nile can breathe over. Peeta isn't taking chances. He's surviving the first day of the Games.

The next question is how he's planning on making the numbers tick down so that way the Careers can take out each other and his other opponents, these innocent tributes who have no chance at surviving an unkillable man.

And the final question, one that might be answered within days, weeks, or even months: how does Peeta plan to kill the final Career standing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, any thoughts as to how the Games will go? What's going on with Andy and Quynh? How they might rescue Joe? Are y'all happy with Booker's return?


	3. looking for a breath of life (the fever began to spread)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not too much of a wait this time, eh? I started listening to "Live Like Legends" by Ruelle and "Breath of Life" by Florence + the Machine and reading some Old Guard fic and here you go, guys! Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title is from "Breath of Life" by Florence + The Machine, which provides a good vibe for this chapter, if y'all want a song to listen to. Also, it just kinda gives me Old Guard vibes in general, too.

The man under the mountain has been dying for nearly a century.

(Or, to be more accurate, he's been dying for a thousand years. He's been living and hurting and dying, over and over, hand in hand with the man he loves, for over a millennium.

He's only been dying _alone_ for the past century, and that's what hurts. That's what matters. That's what makes the difference.)

It's hard to keep track of time when you're constantly dying, whether from suffocation or broken ribs, over and over again, no sunlight or food to mark the days with, just the scrabble of your fingers and toes against the dirt and rock around you.

But in those brief glimpses of life, he tries to estimate time. Tries to keep track of how long he's been struggling to unbury himself from the massive weight of dirt and rock that buried him in that explosion back during a rebellion he struggles to hold onto the memory of.

And it's not the only thing that he's struggling to maintain memories about.

With every death, he loses more and more of his memories of his friends, of their smiles and the way they fight and the way they love. He's forgetting the sound of Andy, Andrea, Andromache's laugh over a correct baklava estimate, the way Nile would run through museums, smiling as she excitedly guessed which pieces of art were each of them. He's forgetting the sound that Booker, Sebastien would made as his fingers tapped away with a pen or a keyboard. He's forgetting the sound of Quinn, Quynh's voice on some battle cry or pop song.

And most of all, he knows he's forgetting what Nicky, Nicholas, Nicolo smelled like, what the food he made tasted like, what his voice sounded like when he was happy and how it felt when their hands entangled. He's forgetting the sensations that have made him who he is for a thousand years.

Everything is slipping away from him save that steady, unending count, in between barely useful scrabbles to dig himself out.

All that is left is the feeling of dirt against skin, of pressure against every inch of his body.

His thoughts are getting sluggish, but two things never stop: a constant count, and those emotional lake eyes. That gaze that can switch from serene to furious in the blink of an eye, the eyes of a killer and a priest, of a cook and a lover. The eyes that Joe, Jose, Yusuf wants to drown in until the end of time.

(Well, maybe not _drown_. He thinks he's had enough of dying for a long time to come.)

His endless faith in Nicolo will not stutter. Nothing can halt him. Even as his count is disrupted by the mountain moving around him, Nicolo is there, his North Star, his goal, his life, his sun and his moon. Those eyes, that life, his lover- it is getting him through.

For awhile- he has no idea how long, as the shifting of the earth disrupts his count- there is rumbling in the mountain around him. Joe dies more often, or at least he thinks he does, but he also is re-energized. The shifting of the earth might give him a way out, a way to make it back to those blue-green eyes.

Then a siren pierces through the earth, between cracks in rock and soil, and Yusuf doesn't know how he can hear it or what it means but he knows one thing:

Yusuf Al-Kaysani is getting out.

-

Peeta Mellark knows that he's going to keep dreaming at night. He'll keep having visions of those lost Undying Ones, those members of the Old Guard, Booker and Quynh and Yusuf and Andy. If he lets out a single sound, wakes screaming from a single nightmare, the Careers will be on him. So he rips the bottom section of his pants off the moment he scrabbles his way into a tree and ties it around his mouth, taking care of that problem while trying to figure out the rest of his strategy for the game.

While in the Arena, Peeta has two priorities: winnowing down the other tributes, and attracting Sponsor gifts. He already got a headstart at the latter by pulling out a sob-story about a girl back in Twelve while onstage during the interviews, and now that he's situated for the night he can work on the Careers.

The easiest way to knock out the Careers is not with weapons that he hasn't trained in yet but by subterfuge. He could just let them knock out each other, but he can't rely entirely on luck to fix the Games in the way that Nile and Nicky and all of those other lost Undying Ones all need him to.

And Peeta is starting to have a plan for that.

His last day in Twelve, Nicky had told Peeta about nightlock. About berries that look just close enough to blueberries to trick the unlucky into consuming them. Then, instant death, no antidote fast enough to save people.

Nicky had mentioned it as a suicide tactic for if Peeta ever gets caught. Peeta's thinking about other ways to employ it to his benefit.

And then, of course, after the Careers and the Sponsors, there _is_ that last thing-

Peeta looks up the mountain, taller than any he's ever seen in Twelve, even taller than the ones he saw from the windows of the train as they all passed through Panem on the way to the Capitol after the Reaping.

This would be a lot easier if he had some kind of tracker, some kind of beacon that could lead him right to Nicky's beloved Yusuf like the Capitol used on rebels during the Dark Days.

Peeta curls up in the tree tops, body curled in to preserve warmth, the stretch of plastic that had been in his bag situated so as not to make noise and alert others while he sleeps.

That night, he dreams of the man under the mountain, the woman chained in the factory, the woman breathing water, and-

He wakes up smiling, images of Nicky and Nile dancing behind his eyes. He has at least one thing he can take comfort in, during the middle of the worst days of his life:

The man in the power plants has escaped.

And the man under the mountain, well...

Peeta's dreams have told him one thing for certain: Yusuf is on the move. If he escapes during the Games, the team will have a bigger issue to deal with than just keeping Peeta's secret safe. They'll have to explain how a man managed to outlive being buried under a mountain for countless years.

But if Peeta manages to end the Games as early as possible, then Yusuf's escape will not be captured by all of Panem on the Games' cameras.

Well, then. Time to speed things up, Peeta estimates.

-

Twelve kids died in the bloodbath. Not a record amount, for sure, but still far from the minimum.

Booker feels a squeeze of guilt in his chest when he feels relieved at a decently high number for the bloodbath. Less kids alive means less kids for Peeta to have to outlast and take care of.

Nicky is thankful that nearly all of the deaths were quick, so those twelve, thirteen, fourteen-year-olds didn't have to suffer when they died.

Nile's heart twinges when little Cinder from the Seam is killed by the hulking eighteen-year-old male tribute from Two. She remembers telling Cinder stories. She remembers telling every Twelve kid stories before watching them walk to their deaths.

(Well, every kid except for Kaylin and Haymitch, of those two Games that Twelve has managed to survive until now. The thirteenth and the fiftieth Games, and now the seventy fourth.)

None of the three of them memorizes the names of any tribute save Peeta for this Games. It is much easier to process these dead children as numbers rather than names so as not to feel guilty when they fall.

It is inevitable that Peeta makes it out. None of them can change that. It would only cause more stress to worry about those other kids, when their focus needs to be on how to help _their_ kid survive the trauma of these stupid Games, of these kills and these deaths.

All that the Guard can give these bloodbaths death is that they're thankful that those kids went out so painlessly. All three of them know how excruciating dying can be, and it's good that these kids didn't have to suffer like they have had to in the past.

Now, it's all about Peeta winning without suspicion.

-

Caesar Flickerman appears on the screen in the evening of the second day of the Games.

In all of her years of observing the Games, Nile has never seen this look on Caesar's face: one of complete and utter shock.

"Not a single tribute from One is still alive," he says, tone speaking to the fact that he can't believe what he's saying any more than any District citizens can. "Both Glimmer Leven and Marvel Quaid both died of poisoned food earlier today, placed by none other than District Twelve's own Peeta Mellark overnight."

Booker barks out a laugh as Caesar continues to narrate one other tribute's death from the night: a girl from Eight that the Careers had taken out. "Damn, we really know how to pick 'em, don't we? Nile jumps out a window on her first mission and and newbie's taking out the competition right and left on his." Booker hasn't stopped calling Peeta "newbie" in the week since he arrived.

Nicky's gaze is distant. His first mission- that _is_ what the Games are, whether they wanted it to be or not. Peeta's first test as one of them. His first test as to how he performs under pressure, in a fight, in a survival situation. His first test of strategy, of invisibility, of not drawing attention even while becoming Panem's Seventy Fourth Victor.

Nicky just wishes that this first test didn't have to be without them by Peeta's side. No new immortal and _definitely_ no child deserves to have to figure out all of this alone, to have to suffer through traumas such as this.

(His stomach squeezes as he remembers the fact that Peeta is rather used to trauma, to abuse, to horror. Living with that monster he calls his mother has exposed him to far more than any child deserves to endure.)

"He can't fight with weapons," Nile says, "Not yet. So he's figuring out other ways to take out the competition. Other ways to survive without being suspicious."

"Brilliant little fucker," Booker mutters in French as the cameras alight on Peeta, on the perch he's made for himself in the treetops. Peeta looks as serene as Nicky did between battles and missions before the Dark Days, the closest

A silver parachute falls and he reaches a hand out to catch the parcel attached to it. Peeta unwraps it to reveal two rolls of warm bread within.

Sustenance, the Guard thinks. The nutrients needed to keep his healing fast and his body healthy.

It isn't ointment, but it's something in that direction.

The Capitol knows that Peeta can kill without weapons, so it won't give him them. Not yet. Not until things enter the final six.

So Peeta or the Careers will just have to push it there.

-

The sky illuminates with the faces of tributes on the second night of the Games. Peeta watches as the tributes from One appear alongside the girl from four and the boy from eight, leaving the Games with seven tributes left other than him.

Time for the final eight. Time for the next round. Time for...

Time for interviews with the tributes' families.

His mother, interviewed by representatives from the Capitol. Having to play the dutiful mother after what she did, how she hurt him.

Peeta flinches for the first time since the night he first died, raising a hand to the back of his head. It's been nearly a month since his first death, but he can still remember the feeling of blood coating the hair there.

Oh, Nile, Nicky, and Booker are going to have quite the time with his mother's interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, tribute's families interviews! Joe maybe getting out! Peeta using ways other than weapons to take down Careers! And most of all, an early chapter! Anyone enjoying how things are going? Anyone want to take guesses as to where things will go? Who wants to see the Guard's reaction to Oaken Mellark getting interviewed for the Games? Who wants to see how Peeta wins?
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment letting me know! Comments are the lifeblood of a writer, after all, and I love to hear people's theories and reactions to chapters- they often give me the motivation and inspiration I need to keep writing!


	4. i have seen what the darkness does (the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here you guys go: an Andy POV, a scene with Rue, and Peeta finding a way to help Joe out of the mountain while also getting himself closer to winning the Games. And, perhaps, a long-awaited appearance at the end of the chapter, for all of you lovely enough to have waited this long.
> 
> Title is from "Meet Me In The Woods" by Lord Huron.

Andy once thought that she'd gotten used to the cold, binding grip of loneliness.

She survived five hundred years without Quynh, after all. What was seventy five stuck toiling chained stories under a factory, a needle of poison steadily dripping into her veins so that she would die frequently enough to never be awake long enough to figure out a way to rip the chains off an escape?

(And not just poison, too- Andy remembers enough to know that they've been testing all other sorts of chemicals on her, over the years she's been stuck here. Chemicals meant to bleed memory, to falsify loyalties, to turn one monstrous.

If Andy wasn't exactly what she was- if she didn't heal fast enough to bleed some of those chemicals out- she knows she'd have already turned into the creature they wanted her to be. Even with her healing, though, she doesn't know how much of her body and mind has been remade for the Capitol, how much she can count as entirely her own while she's still chained here.)

But Andy had underestimated what the three hundred years _with_ Quynh after she'd emerged from the ocean had done to her ability to be alone. All that time, adjusting to being with Quynh, to always having someone by her side- it had weakened her to the threat of loneliness, made her vulnerable to having her heart torn open.

Andy remembers screaming, rage boiling over, when she'd woken up down here, separated not just from Quynh but the rest of their family, no idea what was happening with any of them. She doesn't dream of any of them, anymore- at least not in the way in which she can take comfort in the knowledge that they're alive, somewhere, struggling but not dying, not mortal, not yet.

Seventy years of pain and poison and memories dripping away from her, falling into dust alongside the station she's chained to work at, making some sort of machine parts for the Capitol- the only thing she can take comfort in is that Quynh had to deal with worse for five centuries. Andy can handle however more decades this will take.

Then the dreams of the blond boy start. She can't determine his exact age, but she knows that he's younger than any of the rest of them have ever been. Probably a good decade younger than Nile, who has been the baby for so long.

Rage boils in her stomach. Whatever force makes them who they are- how could it condemn a literal _child_ to their fate?

At least there's one thing that Andy, in her anger, in her fury, can take comfort in- through his eyes, she can see Nicolo. She can see Nile. She can see-

Blood. Gore. Mutts. A shining, shimmering, blade.

\---

Peeta reaches the end of the third day with a new ally in tow.

If Peeta was here any other year, no dreams in his head, no knowledge of an undying family on his shoulders, Peeta knows he would have allied with Rue. Of course he would have. How could he not? Protecting kids like her- the youngest, the most vulnerable, the kindest- Peeta hopes he would have been that sort of man.

But because he has to survive- because he can't do anything but survive- he manages to work himself into an alliance with the boy from Three. Not out of any sentiment, not out kindness, but as a result of his goals.

The boy from Three knows bombs, after all. Peeta had watched him unburying the ones from around the platforms, had seen the boy's practiced fingers move like they knew what they were doing.

Peeta has a plan for those explosives, a way to accomplish two goals at once. Take out the Careers, and open up the mountain. Give Yusuf more of a way to escape.

Peeta has to make as much as he can of his time here, of the tributes available. He can't save them, but he _can_ help save Yusuf.

He'd gotten to the boy when the remaining Careers were away, hunting other tributes. He'd convinced the boy to join an alliance with him, spinning stories as to why they'd work well together, and the boy, fourteen and frightened, had joined up with Peeta.

Then he'd convinced the boy to lay a trap for the Careers at the base of the mountain, at the entrance to a cave that Peeta has determined is somewhat close to where Yusuf is buried.

And then they'd waited.

\---

Booker wakes up on the morning of the fourth day of the Games to find that the girl from Two was taken out in the middle of the night by the boy from Eleven, who had smashed her head in with a rock. A gruesome way of getting it done, yeah, but it inadvertently keeps Peeta safe, so Booker just winces and allows himself a small sigh of relief.

Next to him, Nicky hasn't moved from his seat since the Games began, save to get up and pace enough to get the blood in his limbs flowing and prevent muscle atrophy. Nicky won't take his gaze from the screen, and the little sleep he gets is spent in the chair in front of the screen, so that if any development occurs he'll know immediately.

They all know that they can do nothing to help Peeta, not from this far away, but Booker understands the way that Nicky is using this illusion of news as a way to cope with the knowledge that Joe and Peeta are right next to each other and neither of them know it. It's like scratching an itch- it might make the skin more raw in the long run, but it alleviates the stress temporarily, providing some sort of momentary comfort.

Booker and Nile, on the other hand, take turns hunting and going into town to gather food. Someone has to keep the three of them fed and nourished so that they can take off at a moment's notice, if needs be.

\---

On the eleventh day, an explosion rocks the Southern section of the Arena. The boy from three dies alongside the boy from Two, blasted into pieces by an explosion being set off a bit earlier than planned by a rock shot by the slingshot of the little girl from Eleven.

The little girl from Eleven escapes with burns up her side, but they're too intense to survive, even with medicine. They're too deep, too easily infected, for her to make it more than a day or two. 

She was never going to survive, Peeta knows, but that doesn't stop his heart from dropping when he sees those wounds, too close and too familiar to what has taken out plenty a miner in Twelve over the years.

Peeta can't sing. He's not Katniss or Nile or Yusuf or a mockingjay. But he can spend a good final meal with the girl, tell her stories about Twelve and fairytales and stories half-spun from Nicky and Nile's tales. He listens to her and she sings, as her voice starts to give out from the pain in her side, and he slips a berry juice into her food that he knows will knock her out and give her a peaceful, deep final slumber.

He can't give her a lullaby to her death, but he can give her this small comfort. These few hours of food and stories that put a small smile on her lips. She hugs him as she falls asleep and he hugs her right back before carefully laying her down on the ground.

His hands shake as he pulls out a knife in hands only used to slicing bread and cakes, but he still manages to put Rue out of her misery. One stab into the heart and she's dead, a cannon booming in the background.

Peeta squeezes his eyes shut at the smell of blood and thinks of all of his dreams of Yusuf, Booker, Andy, and Quynh, their constant dying, crushed bones and poison and suffocating lungs and explosions. They are constantly dying far worse deaths than Rue just did, far more painful, far more gruesome.

And yet-

Rue still looks like a girl, unlike the charred remains of the boy from Two and the boy from Three. Her body is small and mostly intact and human, far too human, far too broken. There could be no mistaking her for Undying One or war crime- she is just a little girl who died far before her time.

Here is the failure of the Capitol. Here is the _crime_ of the Capitol.

Peeta lays a flower across her chest and steps away, letting the hovercraft pick up her body.

Then he takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the burning in his eyes as he runs off, her pack and his slung over his back.

\---

There are only three people left in the Games by the end of the second week: the little girl from five, the hulking boy from Eleven, and the boy from Twelve.

All of the Careers are gone, and the only actual physical threat left in the Games is the boy from Eleven. Even Peeta, untrained as he is, can defeat that slip of a girl from Five in a final duel.

Booker is fine taking an evening to worry about things other than the Games for the first time since he arrived to find that boy was one of theirs.

Booker has spent the last month in Twelve, making himself at home- or, at least, as at home as someone like him _can_ be. He's been starting to notice lately, though, that the Peacekeepers are giving him strange looks. Nicky can blend in somewhat, a semi-familiar face from visiting in previous years, but the two of them together, two strange men clearly not from Twelve, by their accents- well, the Peacekeepers are starting to get ideas, Booker's sure. Nothing near the truth, of course, but he thinks that they might think that Nicky and him are secretly rebels, and not without somewhat of a good reason.

As Booker's recovered for the past month, he's learned a lot from Nicky and Nile. Stories about District 13, rumors of a rebellion, all kinds of tales that point to the possibility to escape and revolution.

All three of them- or, rather, all six of them- have helped along their fair share of revolutions in the past. Once they get Peeta out of the Games and out of the eye of the Capitol- or maybe even before they get him out of the eye of the Capitol, Booker knows a propaganda gift horse when he sees one- they can rescue the others and join the rebellion and help the citizens of Panem overthrow this monstrous regime once and for all.

The only question is if the Peacekeepers will try to arrest them before Peeta makes it back and Booker and Nicky can move into his new home in the Village, if Peeta's alright with that.

("Of course he'll be alright with that," Nile said one evening during the Games when Booker had voiced his doubts. "He's one of us, and besides, haven't you heard about his family? Peeta's never living with them again if any of us can help it.")

\---

Dawn breaks on the sixteenth day of the Games to reveal that the boy from Eleven has died overnight from falling over at the edge of a cliff. A nasty storm the night before had dislodged rocks that had knocked off one of the ridges that the boy from Eleven had gotten used to climbing over the past two weeks, leading him to falling to his death.

The final Two are here. The Gamemakers have no desire to draw this out any longer- after so many deaths these Games that were no hand-to-hand, or from one tribute to another, they hope to have a spectacular final duel between the final two. They would have preferred the boys from Eleven and Twelve for this, but they will work with what they have.

Peeta is awoken by the howls of mutts and he knows what is about to happen. He grabs his knife- the only weapon he has- and takes off running.

As Peeta Mellark and the girl from Five make their ways to the Cornucopia, chased by mutts, a sepia-shaded hand emerges from the dirt on the side of the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? So? What'd y'all think? Who's excited? Who predicted any of this? Who's still a little teary-eyed about Peeta and Rue?


	5. seal my heart and break my pride (your oppression reeks of your greed and disgrace)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is even more different POVs than normal, but I hope it still makes sense. Also, decent-sized angsty plot twist that I know some of you will want to scream at me about, so feel free to sound off in the comments as soon as you're done with the chapter.
> 
> Also, heavy on the Peeta POV! Hope y'all like that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Dust Bowl Dance" by Mumford & Sons, which I really vibe with for Peeta's song. Also, I just love it a lot, and it works for this chapter just as well as the other songs have for theirs.

The moment that the boy from Two died in an explosion instead of at the hands of Eleven- thus making only one Career death end in a bloody fashion- Seneca Crane knows that he's screwed. He knows what happens to failed Gamemakers, especially Heads. He's dead before the Games are over.

As a result of being dragged out of the Game Center before even the Eleven Boy dies, Seneca is the only one who sees the screens showing the edges of the Arena. He's the only one who spots the Twelve boy trip, twist his ankle, and then get back up, ankle straight as if nothing just happened.

Seneca knows he could say something. He knows that he could tell the other Gamemakers and the President.

But he's about to die for his screw-ups with these Games and there's nothing he can say that will change that.

Let the President rot. Who cares about the fact that some tribute can heal faster than usual?

The rest of the Gamemakers can deal with that. Seneca's not nice- he's not going to make things nicer or easier for Heavensbee, who is due to be the next Head Gamemaker after Seneca.

\---

No one is surprised that Peeta Mellark emerges Victor from the final two. Once things got down to just him and the girl from five, who was fifteen and stick-thin and starved from two and a half weeks of malnourishment, every bookie knew the odds. Every citizen of Panem knew what would happen.

Peeta helps the girl up onto the Cornucopia, pulls her away from the mutts, and then doesn't hesitate a second before slashing through neck and heart in one fell swoop with his long knife. The girl from Five dies on the spot, her blood spurting all over the place as a cannon booms and the mutts fade back into the trees around them, disappearing from sight.

The Capitolites get their gore. Five gets some small level of peace that their daughter went out without being toyed with by a Career or mauled by mutts.

(It's the smallest gift Peeta can give them.)

Back in Twelve, Nicky, Nile, and Booker can finally let out a sigh of relief as the declaration of Victor is made. Peeta is done. Soon enough he can return to them, to a life where they can give him as much comfort and rest as they can afford before tracking down Joe. They can comfort him, let him know he is not alone, help him recover in some small way after the ordeal he just had to suffer through.

In the Capitol, President Snow smiles a poisonous smirk. This boy isn't who he wanted to win, but he can make this work for his plans. The boy is young and broad-shouldered and pretty in the same way that Finnick Odair was, years ago.

Coriolanus Snow can take advantage of that. 

\---

Peeta's stylist dresses him in gold for his Crowning, arrays him in the color of Victory like he's some Career, and Peeta tries to keep his shoulders straight.

The crown settles onto Peeta's hair with the same impossible weight that his immortality did. Peeta will never be able to get rid of this weight, of this guilt, of this feeling that pulls down his bones.

(Or, well, maybe he will. But it might take centuries do so- centuries that Peeta can't really imagine, no matter how much Nicky and Nile told him about how long they and the rest of the Undying Ones have been alive.)

\---

All Peeta can think about during his Victory Interview is Nicky's and Nile's stories about the tapestry of history washed red with blood that they have seen or spilt and he thinks about his dreams. While he has Andromache's fury and Yusuf's potential freedom in his mind, his limbs refrain from shaking. He plays the part of child-killer to a T, locking all sympathy and remorse and nausea behind his teeth.

He can't betray any weakness. He has to spin pretty tales and get the Capitol on his side.

At least that's what he's good at, right? If he isn't good with weapons- which he's definitely not- this silver tongue of his, this strategist's brain, have to be the reasons why he was made into an Undying One.

\---

It is the night after the interview that Peeta dreams of Yusuf, and he is not under a mountain, not under dirt, he is-

He is strapped down to a table in a room that is bright white, too bright, too white, clinical and dangerous. There are needles pricking every inch of his skin, pulling at his flesh, sending him into the same dizzying thoughts and madness that Andromache is suffering wherever she is lashed down, beneath whatever factory Peeta keeps dreaming of.

Peeta wakes up screaming with a singular thought, a singular emotion from Yusuf swamping over his mind, bleeding over every thought and staining every fact.

He rips off these Capitol-rich sheets, uncomfortable in their softness against his skin, and stumbles over to the nearest tablet. He types in a single sentence and spends the next three hours staring at the sentence he's written, willing it to go through his dreams and into Booker's, who he knows is with Nicky and Nile. They need to know. They need to do something. Peeta can't leave Yusuf with the Capitol without letting everyone else know.

He erases the note soon enough, not wanting to leave any evidence behind for the Capitol to find. He sets the tablet to the side and sits back on the bed, perfectly alone.

Peeta's hands go to his face and finally, in what little privacy as he can manage in this room, sobs. He cries for Yusuf, and Andromache, and Quynh, and those children he killed, and maybe, just a little, for himself.

He's killed children. Even beyond Rue and the girl from Five, he organized the deaths of Cato and the Boy from Three. He left that poison in the Careers' food. He did everything he could to get out and he wants to vomit. He wants Nicky and Nile, with their calm, gentle voices. He wants to curl up in Nile's cabin and not leave for years.

But he can't, and he knows it. He still has more interviews, the President's Ball, the declaration of his talent- at least two weeks before he can get home. And even then, after that- he'll have to go on his Victory Tour in six months and be a Mentor in twelve and then again the year after that until they can all somehow figure out a way to save Yusuf from the Capitol and Andromache and Quynh from their respective prisons.

Only ten minutes later the tablet chimes. Peeta wipes his eyes, stands up, and walks over to find a message- from the President himself, instructing him to arrive at his office in no more than two hours' time.

Oh, shit.

\---

His stylists fluster themselves over Peeta's apperance, muttering about making an outfit "good enough" to see the _President_ in, but all Peeta can think about is what the President might be summoning him for.

What could President Snow want? Peeta didn't have any mysteriously healing wounds in the Games. He was careful not to betray any weapons techniques that Nicky and Nile told him about. Every kill he made- save the last one- weren't done during a duel or a fight. He was as average as he could be while still trying to help Yusuf.

What could Peeta have fucked up? What could he have done wrong? What the Capitol have possibly caught him on?

Peeta enters the President's office five minutes ahead of time, dressed in a pure white suit, and finds no chair to sit in. Instead, he has to stand in front of President Snow's desk, hands clasped behind his back in an attempt to stop them from shaking.

President Snow fixes a snake's gaze on him. "You have been trained by those who call themselves the Old Guard," he says, and Peeta's mind spins. President SNow knows about him, about Nicky and Nile, knows his connection to Yusuf-

But wait. Peeta forces himself to take a deep breath. The President may not know that Peeta is one of them. "Trained" by the Old Guard- that name that Nile says that Nicky, Andromache, Quynh, and Yusuf gave themselves so long ago- that implies that the President doesn't know that he is one of them.

But still, there is no way that the President is just being casual with this meeting. Peeta being trained by the Guard, if only for one night, is not the same as the Careers. It is abnormal and the President will not like it.

But still, that doesn't necessarily mean that the President had to tell Peeta. Peeta may be sixteen but he knows that knowledge is power. It gives one an advantage over other people. There's a reason why Peeta never told anyone what his mother did to him, why he was so careful not to show any sign of his healing in the Arena.

So what is he trying to get at by telling Peeta that he knows?

"What do you want with me?" Peeta asks, a reckless courage sleeping into his bones that he's never felt before. He thinks it might be Andromache's madness seeping out of his dreams and into his veins.

The President smiles, an eery, fatal thing. "Why, just a little of your support, of course," He says, voice a purr that sends shivers up Peeta's spine. "After all, I know your dear mentors would be greatly disappointed if you let anything happen to their dear friend." He waves his hand and a screen rises behind him, showing the-

The Arena. If Peeta wasn't far-too-aware of the consequences of letting the President know anything about how he is feeling, his brow would furrow. What does the Arena matter to-

The camera zooms in on the side of the mountain, blasted open by Three's bombs, and Peeta's blood goes cold as he sees an oak-brown hand emerge. As the howling of mutts fills the office, Yusuf pulls himself from the dirt and rocks.

Peeta sees the face of Nicky's beloved- bearded, eyes bloodshot, expression full of the fury that Peeta has felt for weeks, more creature than human. Yusuf stands on shaky legs, ink-dark eyes gleaming, and Peeta knows he should be afraid. This man is almost 1500 years old. He has killed more people than Peeta has ever met. He is as much of a killer as any Career, better trained than any tribute who has ever entered the Games.

But Peeta remembers Nicky and Nile's stories about Nicky's great love, about the merchant and the poet and the artist, about the man who first died defending his city from invaders, and all he can feel is some sort of relief, some sort of kinship. This man is Peeta's family member, his future brother of sorts, a member of his kind-

Peeta barely conceals a flinch as Yusuf goes down, a bullet in his temple. He jumps back up within ten seconds, but as the howls become quieter (Peeta knows that he is busy either pulling the girl from Five onto the Cornucopia or killing her right now), the screen fills with men in white uniforms that proceed to fill Yusuf's body with bullets.

The screen then flashes briefly before showing an empty white room- the same one that Peeta dreamt of last night. Yusuf is yanking at his restraints, trying to get free, before green liquid pours down a tube and into his side. He slumps back onto the table and Peeta doesn't know whether he's been killed again or just knocked unconscious. Knowing the horror of the Capitol, of what they're willing to do to _children_ every year in the name of entertainment, he wouldn't but anything past them.

Then, in a series of quick flashes: Peeta's family in the bakery, his brothers baking while his mother yells. Katniss Everdeen- such a distant memory at this point that he almost doesn't know why she's there, before remembering that Peeta had mentioned her at the Tribute Interview- shooting squirrels close enough to the fence to be seen, and then her selling them to _Booker_ in the Hob. Nile and Nicky emerging from Nile's hut, faces pinched, as they head into town.

Peeta doesn't know how the Capitol got footage of Nile, Nicky, and Booker, nor does he know how they connected him to them-

He nearly curses as he connects the dots. He _does_ know how they made the connection. Those five minutes in the Justice Building, before the train. There had been no mention of Undying Ones in that room, but the cameras recorded them talking. That was enough for someone to make the connection, even if the Capitol might not understand just how strong it is.

But however the Capitol made connections between Peeta and everyone President Snow just showed him, it doesn't matter. The President doesn't have to say anything aloud for Peeta to understand the threat he's making: _make one wrong move and the Capitol will hurt anyone you've ever loved._

But at least there is one thing that Peeta can hold comfort in right now: the fact that the President does not seem to know about the dreams or his own undying nature, if he feels the need to show Peeta video footage, if he calls him "trainee" rather than "member." That is one advantage, one gift, Peeta can keep for himself.

So Peeta lets out a small breath, lets his face slacken into something approaching the fear the runs through his veins. He cannot betray anything. He cannot reveal a thing.

"What do you want me to do, President?" he asks, the appropriate amount of deference dripping from his voice.

"Why, thank you for asking, Mr. Mellark," the President says. He pushes a tablet forward across the polished umber surface of his desk. Sitting there is a time, date, and the name of a Capitolite Peeta vaguely remembers meeting at the Victory Ball. A Desdemona Gaul.

Peeta lets his eyebrow raise, showing some level of his confusion. "What's that?"

"Why, Mr. Mellark," the President says, silky voice as venomous as a copperhead. "That is your first appointment, if you do not wish pain to come to your loved ones or your trainers' loved ones."

The word 'appointment' should not sound as deadly as it does. And yet- Peeta knows that there is nothing that the President would need to threaten him for if it was good.

"Your mentor can explain to you the exact specifications of your Appointment," the Professor continues breezily- if a breeze could cut one to the bone. Peeta has felt those before, back in Twelve, in the years where his family's heating went out because even Merchant families can't always keep up with the heating bills.

Peeta thinks about his family, about Yusuf, about Nicky and Nile and Booker, about even Katniss, who the President is threatening even if she hasn't really crossed Peeta's mind since the moment he woke up from his first death.

Peeta's always been a strategist. A thinker. A talker. A storyteller. He's not a warrior. He doesn't know how to wield weapons like the rest of the Old Guard. He doesn't know how to assemble a bomb or hack a computer system wield a blade beyond the basics.

What he does know how to do is to manipulate, to question, to act. If he wants to be able to keep Yusuf as safe as possible, wants to give Nicky and Nile and Booker as much time as possible to solve things, to find Yusuf, to find everyone else- Peeta will have to make concessions, no matter how much they scare or disgust him.

"So, Mr. Mellark," President Snow says, smiling a smirk as dark red and poisonous as the rose he has clipped to his lapel. "What shall it be?"

Peeta will sell himself to the President to do whatever he wants, knowing that Peeta will survive it. How can he not? He can't die. He can't be permanently broken. Whatever the Capitol throws at him- mutt or human or chemical- Peeta will make it back.

He will get out of this. He will figure out a way to somehow help rescue Yusuf and Quynh and Andromache. He will make it back to Nicky and Nile and Booker.

Peeta bows his head. His sacrifice to keep them safe, give them time. "Where do I need to go for my first appointment?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, warnings have been updated. Nothing graphic will be shown here of the sexual assault that Peeta is about to experience, but it will be mentioned/implied.

**Author's Note:**

> The planned next chapter is going to have either Nicky or Nile's POV covering the Hunger Games/Tribute parade & interviews, along with maybe a surprise appearance from a character or two.
> 
> Please feel free to tell me what you guys might like to see going forward/what you think is going to happen/what you liked about this chapter! I love any and all feedback and it is very much appreciated, especially since it helps provide motivation for writing faster!


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